


Tomorrow

by FuryGirl



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 00:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8265349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuryGirl/pseuds/FuryGirl
Summary: Shepard and Tali wonder about their future, realizing they never planned past the Reaper War.





	

Explosions in space were at once dramatic and underwhelming.  
The lack of oxygen removed all the flame from the blast, leaving only the shards and shrapnel  
flying past.   
It was unnerving, to say the least, to watch the citadel explode -- no, shatter -- around them. The  
wards pulled apart from the ring of the presidium, spinning and snapping.   
Anura Shepard lay back against one of the stairwells. She couldn't help. It notice the uncanny  
similarity the moment bore to Saren's defeat.   
"We did it, Anura." Over to her right, Tali'Zorah panted in her envirosuit. "Keelah se'lai, I can't  
believe we did it."  
Anura looked back at the destruction, her breath fogging her mask slightly. Her head lolled back.  
"God, it's today isn't it?"  
Tali looked over quizzically. "Isn't it always?"

Anura snorted. "Not... Do you know what today is?"

Tali visibly raised an eyebrow. "Human calendar, it's march the... Tenth? Quarian, it's the second  
of-"

"Tali, that's... Not what I meant. What I meant was..." Anura struggled for the words. "Ever since  
Eden prime, since that damn bacon, everything I've done, everything I've thought about has  
been to getting to today. It's all led up to today. Even with you, all I can think about is what  
happens when today happens, and I never-" her voice cracked, "I never thought about  
tomorrow. God, two years and I never thought past today. Never thought about what I'd do when  
the war ended. I guess I thought I'd be dead."

  
Shepard leaned back, a tear cooling in her mask. Instinctively, she pressed the gas vent. "I was  
so selfish, Tali. And now... Now I don't want to die like this. Without knowing what we would have  
done tomorrow."

  
Tali looked at Anura, stupefied. "Anura..." Was all she could get out. She didn't cry; quarians did  
not have tear ducts.

  
They both looked in silence at the wreckage, unsure what to say.  
After a moment, Shepard broke the silence. "War orphans?"  
"I... What?" Tali looked over at her  
"Maybe we could adopt war orphans. Maybe turian. Or human or salarian dammit I just don't  
care. I want to adopt a pair of little war orphans with you and live with them on Rannoch after we  
get out of this."  
"Anura... Why are you talking about this? Why right now?"  
Anura looked over at the quarian she loved, pained. "Tali, love... We're not getting out of this.  
Nobody knows where we are, and there's so much wreckage they'll never find the beacon or get  
a clear LADAR scan. And I might be..." She looked on the left side of her HUD at the flashing  
red "NITROX LOW" annunciatior, and the pressure gauge under her omni-tool to confirm "I'm  
probably hypoxic, but... I don't want to die without thinking about tomorrow. For just once in the  
last two godforsaken years. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, will you adopt a goddamn war orphan  
with me and raise them as our child on Rannoch?" She crawled over to Tali, resting her hand on  
the younger woman's. "Please. Just tell me we have a tomorrow."  
Tali looked over at Anura. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, Anura's face had  
relaxed. The lines that had become seemingly etched in stone had vanished, and in that  
moment, Tali no longer saw Commander Shepard, hero of the citadel, no longer saw Shelard,  
savior of the galaxy, but the same pained, pleading Anura that pushed her into an escape pod  
two years ago before flying into the night alone.  
"Yes, Anura. Yes we will. We will raise a child together. On Rannoch. Tomorrow."  
Her oxygen alarm had gone off five minutes ago. She didn't tell Anura. Her eyes closed, slowly,  
weighted by hypoxia, her lungs straining to draw breath against the cold tug of an empty tank,  
and she rolled into Anura's grasp, the thought of her family -- their family -- carrying her into the  
embrace of hypoxia, and whispered, "Tomorrow."


End file.
